The present invention relates to military training equipment, and more particularly, to an improved system for detecting, communicating and processing laser simulated weapon hits on soldiers and paramilitary personnel.
For many years the armed services of the United States have trained soldiers with a multiple integrated laser engagement system (MILES). A laser small arms transmitter (SAT) is mounted to a rifle stock. Each soldier carries optical detectors on his or her helmet and on a body harness adapted to detect a laser "bullet" hit. The soldier pulls the trigger of the rifle to fire a blank cartridge to simulate the firing of an actual round and a sensor on the SAT triggers the laser. The player identification and weapon type can be encoded on the laser beam using a MILES code. An electronic controller also carried by the soldier is connected through an amplifier to the optical detectors to decode the output signals thereof and provide an indication to the soldier that he or she has been hit by a laser bullet.
The high gain amplifier of the conventional "manworn" portion of the MILES is contained within the same housing as the controller. The amplifier is extremely sensitive to electrical noise generated by the controller. Too high of a gain on this amplifier can result in false hits being indicated by the controller. Too low of a gain of this amplifier can result in a failure to detect a hit by a laser bullet. At present it is difficult to check for problems in the amplifier.
It is currently necessary to make a physical electrical connection in order to download data from the conventional "manworn" portion of the MILES. This is time consuming and the connectors can become damaged during the rigorous physical conditions encountered in war games.
The conventional manworn portion of the MILES uses a hardware shift register to decode the received laser. This hard-wired logic circuitry is inadequate in decoding the received laser signal if portions of that signal are lost. This aspect of the conventional manworn portion of the MILES also makes it impossible to change or modify the code structure being transmitted by the laser beam from the SAT without changing the circuitry in the manworn controller.